Smart personal finance rules dictate having an emergency savings fund set aside where you can access it fast. But do you really have to keep enough money for three to six months of expenses in a savings account where it earns almost no interest?

For conservative investors, bank certificates of deposit are a time-tested favorite for providing income. But fixed annuities seem to offer similar terms with better rates, so which investment is the smarter way to get the income you need?

Large numbers of middle-class Americans still aren't in a financial position to make saving for retirement a priority again, but on the whole, they're quite worried about it. Problem is, they may not be worried enough.

Interest rates have never been lower: That's good news for borrowers, bad news for savers unwilling to take much risk to grow their money. However, there's one safe option many people ignore that has become attractive again -- savings bonds.

Teens aren't consuming music the way that their parents do -- and it's not just the usual taste-related generation gap. An eye-opening Nielsen survey shows that teens are relying on YouTube to supply their tunes more than any other medium.

Obviously, what you invest in can mean the difference between getting rich and losing your shirt. But where you place those investments can be even more important -- especially if you end up picking winners.

It may seem hard to save money for retirement: Fully 76% of Americans have saved less than $100,000, and 56% have saved less than $25,000. But once you learn how Oseola McCarty managed to set aside so much with so little, you'll see how few excuses you have.

A retiree named Bob is confronting a dilemma many of his peers face: His nest egg is parked in safe cash investments, like certificates of deposit, and earning barely any interest. What can he do to get a better return? Laura Rowley looks at an increasingly popular alternative.

A few years ago, with $1 million invested in CDs, you could have lived off your interest, but with rates at historic lows, now your returns would barely cover a few mortgage payments. This is forcing retirees to find new, fairly safe ways to get those returns. The experts' recommendation? Dividend stocks.

Bowing to reality, Best Buy will slash the floor space it devotes to compact discs and DVDs this holiday season. It's a reflection of the record industry's grinding digital transformation. Meanwhile, Google is getting ready to challenge Apple, the digital music king.

Europe's shakiest economies managed to ride out a sovereign debt crisis this spring with a lot of help from their more stable neighbors and the major central banks. But with global recovery faltering, the data coming out of Europe suggests we may soon see a replay of the debt default crisis.

When the government bailed out AIG, it paid 100 cents on the dollar amount demanded by the banks: $67 billion. Former AIG executive Joseph Cassano says he has no idea why the government paid full price, asserting that he could have "negotiated an appreciably better deal" for taxpayers.